There is a moment in Paolo Sorrentino’s YOUTH when the aging conductor and composer, played by Michael Caine, stops in a beautiful European meadow to watch the cows. At first we are listening to each dong of a cowbell as a separate sound. Slowly he begins to hear the music hidden inside them. With a bit of imagination, the conductor soon raises a hand to conduct. If the film has a metaphor, this is it. It takes every random "dong" and connects them into a symphony. When not conducting cows, the conductor has retreated to a luxury spa-hotel that might be Purgatory.

An octogenarian will rise… slowly. That could have been the […]